I've traveled quite a bit by any standard, and a very great deal by (admittedly low) American standards. And not just to Rome, Paris, Barcelona and the other names on the stereotypical tourist cross-off list. I've experienced destitution in Limerick, a… Read full post »

I have a photo of my wife and son on my desk  at the office. It's a cute 0ne-- my son was five months old, just able to sit up. He's on the bed, legs crossed, with a big smile. His mom sits next to him, also smiling, legs also crossed,… Read full post »

I suppose I'll take a drubbing for this, but so be it....

Imagine, for a moment, that you're a dissident in a dictatorship--  Nazi Germany, say, or Franco's Spain.  Or Kim's North Korea. Or any of the  authoritarian governments in Eastern Europe before the fall of the Berli… Read full post »

As I push his stroller down the sidewalk, 18-month-old Nicholas is like a politician in a parade; he waves to complete strangers, blowing kisses to some (especially old ladies and teenage girls). If we stop to chat, he shakes hands and gives high-fives with enthusiasm. Every meeting ends with a heart… Read full post »

These are airlines I've flown with in the last five or six years. Further back, my recollection gets hazy.

United On a Tokyo-New York flight, deep in the night, somewhere over the Pacific, I opened my eyes to see smoke and bits of flame spurting from one of the engines. I did what… Read full post »

In less than two weeks, I'll be leaving my job at a university in Europe and flying back to my long-term home in Asia. This is the brackish time in late-semester when the incoming and outgoing faculty briefly mix, hopeful naïveté  jostling with jaded irascibility. One freshly-ar… Read full post »

I had often seen him crossing the courtyard of the apartment complex where we both lived: a slight, dark- haired man in his early thirties, walking with his hands in his pockets. I knew that he was a student at the university where I teach, but I never saw him in… Read full post »

Why am I doing this? This blog, that is?

For many of those who call themselves bloggers, this might seem a ridiculous question. In the world of the internet, to blog is to be. To not blog, in one form or another, is to be voiceless and faceless. So maybe the question… Read full post »